Dark Wings, Dark Words

Smoke

Ashanna Stark couldn't form anymore tears.

The last stream stained her lips and cheeks with salt. She could taste it every time she opened her mouth to breathe.

Her mother had asked three servants to run Ashanna a bath. She didn't object. She was clean in a matter of minutes but she couldn't leave the water, even though the water was a dull brown. She couldn't go.

That's when the first tears came.
One tear fell after another and they slowly mixed with the tainted water.

That's how Ashanna Stark stayed for a long time..
Crying.
Crying for her brothers.
Crying for her sisters.
Crying for her father and mother... for the north.

It occurred to Ashanna that all she did nowadays was cry. And that's when those tears stopped, when she couldn't physically make them anymore. She needed to stop these feelings of despair. She needed to control it, before it controlled her.

So she wrapped her arms around her knees and peered into the murky water. A sudden twitch of her left hand made her furrow her eyebrows.

It's a reaction to the cold water...

Ashanna removed her hand from her legs and examined it carefully. She watched as the twinges grew into violent shaking.

A vision..

Ashanna's sight began to blur, she clawed to get out of the bath. Her body began tremble, her legs wouldn't support her. Ashanna's body slowly sank into the dark water. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her face plunged under the water's surface.

The smoke burned Ashanna Stark's eyes. Her coughing wouldn't cease, she couldn't breathe. Her lips were cracked, her fingers were caked in blood. She felt as if she had lived through whatever horrors she was seeing.

Fire overwhelmed the towering walls of Winterfell. Ashanna fell to her knees at the sight of the flames.

At the sight of the two tar coated bodies at the entrance.

Why were the gods showing her this?..
This- this was cruel..

She couldn't tear her gaze away from her brothers' suspended bodies.

They died in pain.. they must have. If Theon really hated them that much to string them up and submerge them in tar.

Ashanna watched as the flames burned brighter. Her home was burning..

A sudden movement caught the corner of Ashanna's grey eyes. Two wolves were escaping the grounds of Winterfell.
One was a small little cub, while the elder had severely injured his back legs.

Ashanna followed them cautiously. The injured wolf turned to look at her.

Those eyes..
Those were human eyes...

Before Ashanna could decipher this message the scenery around her begin to blur. Like different pigments on a page.

But before the scene shifted completely, she caught sight of a flag being raised over Winterfell's walls.

The flayed man.
House Bolton.